Alex's birthday is right around the corner...and he, too, is having a Star Wars party!
The invite looks pretty cool, if I do say so myself! Most importantly, the soon-to-be-five-year-old is happy!!!
I went from this picture (thanks to Anne, Sean, & super model, Alex):
A very Star Wars obsessed birthday girl got just what she wanted - a Star Wars themed event. I went a little crazy with the cupcakes, but think they turned out uber cool! Who am I kidding, I went a bit overboard for everything for this party. It was, after all, the first birthday party where she invited more than her BFFs, Campbell & Will. We were delighted, in addition to the Koeglers, to have E's gal pals, Madeline & Reese (and their awesome mom, Jennifer) and the Huffmans - Jacob, Jillian, & Josh (along with their Star Wars loving dad, Aaron, and their mom, Courtney, who like Reid doesn't "get it".) Grandma was on hand to spoil us all -- especially me, with all of the cleaning before and after the fact!
Elizabeth got a TON of fun stuff from Star Wars action figures, a Star Wars tent and blanket (to go with her new bunk beds!), girly-girl stuff (that I have no clue about - lol), to clothes, to the HUGE Barbie Dream Town House - complete with a flushing toilet which is sooooo unnecessary!
What a great day!!! Check it out here...
Just like the invitation to the Very Hungry CATErpillar party 
stated, "We can't believe a year has passed..." Seriously? How is my baby a freaking year old already???
Cate celebrated her 1st birthday a few hours early as Reid had to be on the road with the Hilltoppers. Elizabeth helped me make Kitty Cat Cate a Hello Kitty cake. Cate was quite funny when it came to consuming her smash cake - she definitely didn't like the feel
of the icing on her hands! Once she finally got around to tasting the icing, she set aside her feelings for the texture of the icing and did do some damage to the consumption of the cake. (I do make some good buttercream!) It was great having Grandma in the Friendly City of Wheeling for the celebration, too...especially since it then freed me up so that I could reprise my role of Hoke and drive Miss Daisy to Arlington, VA, to meet Maggie! (What a cutie she is!!!) We were also lucky enough to have the opportunity to Skype with Nana & Papa so they could virtually participate in the party doings!
Papi joined Grandma, Daddy, Elizabeth, Cate, and me for Cate's Very Hungry CATErpillar party. Reid and I were both super tired from our trips, Reid's to Charleston and then on to NC with the women's basketball team...me to DC. It was really, really nice that following the men's 
basketball game that we didn't have a serious schedule for the party...just called out for some pizza from DeFelice's (yum!), had the fruit and cheese tray, and CATErpillar cupcakes for the party. (We did all have to keep on Elizabeth's entertaining schedule, though...as she is turning into quite the party hostess!) We got to Skype with Nana, Aunt Rikki, Uncle Doug, and Maggie for the party, too, which was super cool!
Cate still didn't really destroy her cake (although it would be tough to top the mess that Elizabeth made with her smash cake on her first birthday...) Cate was waaaaaay spoiled with all of the presents - as was Elizabeth! All in all, a great celebration!
At 1 year, Cate has 5 teeth: 2 on bottom, 3 on top (middle and upper right). She has been walking about for a month. She loves to climb stairs and would do so with much regularity if we let her do it. She continues to do well with eating a great variety of food. She's working on drinking her whole milk from a sippy cup. She's working on using a spoon to eat as well, although right now it is a fun play thing. She is loving reading books -- or babbling and turning the pages. She has most recently taken to holding the phone and saying "Dada..." She is also doing better with sleeping at night. She waves bye-bye and has finally figured out peek-a-boo -- although it was super-cute when she would cover her ears rather than her eyes...
Cate is in the 70th percentile in height (29-1/4") -- which is precisely where Elizabeth was at 1 year. She is in the 50th percentile in weight (21 lbs, 3 oz.) At 1 year, Elizabeth out weighed her by 6 oz.. Granted at birth Elizabeth started out 7 ounces heavier and 3/4 of an inch taller.
Here's the final quilt picture. Click on the image to make it larger.
If I do say so myself...over the past few years, I've done some pretty cute birthday party invitations for Elizabeth and Alex as evidenced below:
Elizabeth's 1st Birthday:
Alex's 1st Birthday (where I learned so much more on Photoshop):
E's 2nd Birthday (was a book of pictures of her throughout the year...) E's 3rd Birthday (definition of over-the-top, the entire Candyland party was actually), which I blogged about here: http://wvu-mama.blogspot.com/2009/01/birthday-party-preparations.html. E's 4th birthday was my first attempt at a pop-up card. I blogged about that as well as her Sesame Street themed event here: http://wvu-mama.blogspot.com/2010/01/happy-sesame-birthday.html. Her 5th birthday were pretty awesome, too...I love Dr. Seuss and blogged about the invites and party here: http://wvu-mama.blogspot.com/2011/01/elizabeths-dr-seuss-5th-birthday-party.html.
For some time now, I've known that I was going with the "A Very Hungry CATErpillar" theme for her her first birthday. (The kid loves to eat!) To be honest, I bought some of the party supplies back in May...so this has been a long time coming. The invites alone, I think are worth doing this party theme! Here's what I've 
done and what it took to get there (work in Photoshop excluded):
First, I started with a spool of brown satin ribbon 1/4" thick. Cut the ribbon into 3" long pieces and heat sealed the edges (that's what the matches are for.) I then hot glued matching brown 'fuzz balls' on the edge of one end of the ribbon. You need 2 ribbons with balls for the antennae for each invitation.
Next, you glue (craft glue works just 
fine) the ribbon onto the back of the caterpillar's face. When you glue them down on the back side, make sure the fuzz ball is on top of the ribbon so when the antennae flop down on the face of the caterpillar, they will be on the correct side. (You don't have to be exact with this as this entire invitation is very forgiving for those of you, like me, who don't really like to measure anything...)
Then, I started assembling. I did a red brad on the part with the face 
(you'll overlap one circle with the next). When you are lining up the circles to make the holes for the brads, make sure you overlap enough that the hole and subsequent brad aren't too close to the edge. Based on how I did the circles in Photoshop, after the red brad for the face, I alternated a dark and a lighter green (coming as close as I could to matching the edge -- and yes, that involved special ordering brads from my favorite local scrapbook store!)
The brad work well as the finished 
product then can be wiggly and inch along, just like a caterpillar. It also allows the flexibility in the invitation for all of the panels to fold around (think like a fan when folding) so that the invite fits well into an envelope to be popped into the mail...
Here's the final product all unfolded (click on any of the images to make them larger):
I am mad to Target! (That's how my cousin Mike used to say it when he was a kid, now a dad of three..."I am mad to ___" when he felt he was wronged...)
I've thrown 5 birthday parties for Elizabeth. Five (sometimes over-the-top) themed parties:
Alex was thrilled with his birthday party, much to my delight. Even better was how easy it was do make his yummy cake (not counting that I "cheated" and used a box mix...the cake part could have been better, and would have been had I not be cheating, but my icing is scrumptious...makes me want to whip up some more right now just to have a sweet snack!
So, it was a white cake with buttercream frosting, you can never go wrong with buttercream!
When packing to go to Mom & Daddy's you would have thought this was my first time making a cake at their house...totally forgot my off set spatula, which I can't do a cake without. (You might have also thought I was raised by wolves as there was no such thing to be found in their kitchen...so off to the "outlets" in Flatwoods Reid & I went to buy a completely over-priced and not great quality for the price off-set spatula at the Corning Ware Outlet. What a racket!)
I was also quite fortunate that Mom had a Fiestaware pizza plate, as I neglected to pack mine. The track was part of our gift to Alex...the decor on the cake was all just piped on with round tips -- except the leaves of the trees that were done with a star tip. The Thomas toys are bath toys (also part of our gift to Alex, but not nearly as cool as the Star Wars gun that E picked out for her "red headed boy, Alex".) I don't know what I was thinking after doing the tunnel and then starting with the trees on the left, I got about half way around and then I came back to the tunnel and went to the right...when I got to the back, my spacing was off...so I solved this with a little Alpha Gam tribute -- Skiourrous!
The rest of the train cars were frosted brownies on top of chocolate graham crackers. The wheels are M&Ms...then the cars were "carrying" a variety of treats - Runts, Mike & Ike's, etc. I thought it would be cute to have one of the train cars carrying some Star Wars action figures, so I bought the Star Wars gummy snacks at Kroger. My plan was foiled when Anne opened the Star Wars package to find that rather than the Star Wars gummies, it contained Curious George! Good thing this wasn't a Star Wars themed event!
The boy got all sorts of clothes and other goodies -- and then over-the-top fun from the Wine family (his John Deere gator)!
With all of the partying Cate was just worn out...This picture is what I refer to as the "Always a Padawan, never a Jedi". Too darned cute!!!
And, as a bonus, when you Google "Padawan" to make sure you are spelling it correctly, you could, just like me, stumble upon "Wookiepedia," the Star Wars Wiki. Good grief!
I don't know which is sweeter...this birthday party invite (thankyouverymuch!) or my adorable nephew who has turned 4 today. I think I'll go with the latter.
If you think these invites are cute - just wait until I get to the party stuff. (Note to self: Get crap together for your nephew's birthday party -- you only have 3 working days...)
I love you, Alley Cat! Happy 4th Birthday!!!
Being the control-freak that I tend to be, at least with parties, I love that I can still convince Elizabeth what she "really wants" for a birthday party theme! So this year, Elizabeth really wanted a Dr. Seuss birthday party!
was even too small for a mouse - (from the book How the Grinch Stole Christmas)
class at 4-H camp one or two summers when I was in middle school!) The topper was made from fondant -- which I made. It tasted good, but was a complete pain to work with. I must be doing something wrong with the fondant, too, as there wasn't any way that I could have used it over the entire cake if I wanted to, which I didn't (as I love, love, love butter cream icing!) I used one of the Dr. Seuss decorations (see the picture with the Happy Birthday banner) as a reference and after cussing, rolling out the effing fondant, and more cussing...I free-hand cut out the shape of the Cat in the Hat with a pairing knife. It was then my intention to use edible markers to draw onto the fondant, but that went over like a fart in a library. I was then forced to free hand using colored butter cream icing the details on the cat. It ended up looking much better than I think it would have if I could have gotten the edible markers to work the way I thought they would... It was Elizabeth that wanted her name on the cake, which I think made it just perfect! The Thing 1 and Thing 2 cupcakes were pretty darned cute, too!
Doug." (We definitely hated that we didn't get the quality time with my Dad/Papi and Rikki & Doug, but are happy that they stayed put...as the weather reports are calling for more of the white crap! I'm sure the painful scars can be eased, Doug, with a check to cover her college tuition!) Of course, we have missed Anne, Sean, and Alex at E's party as well...not that even if the weather would be cooperative, which it certainly isn't right now in the Big Apple, it would be most impractical for them to make the long trek from NYC to Wheeling for the birthday party.We had a great time this year at Elizabeth's 4th Birthday party! We were so delighted to have Grandma, Nana, Papi, Rikki, Doug, and the Koeglers - Jason, Sarah, Campbell, & Will celebrate with us. Especially Rikki & Doug (guilt does work!) for braving the weather to get here...which is what kept Papi at home.
When Elizabeth and I play games online at the Sesame Street, there is a put the clothes on Grover game that she really likes. Not that she likes to put Grover in all sorts of clothes, she just likes to get him dressed in the scrubs because then there is an X-Ray graphic and she can obsess about her bones and Grover's bones...
So this morning I took Elizabeth to get the X-Ray of her adenoids.
On the drive to the hospital, she she was talking about how much bigger she will be when she is four-years-old. So I was asking her what kind of birthday party she wanted. She said, "I can have Sesame Street for my birthday when I'm four and Mr. Hooper and Elmo can come. That's a good idea."
I hope she isn't disappointed that Mr. Hooper hasn't been making appearances anywhere since some time in the 80's. She liked watching him on her new movie, "Christmas Eve on Sesame Street."
Then she added, "And when I'm 18, I can have Thomas the Train!"
I'll see if she will be the most popular girl in high school her senior year when I recommend that she have a Thomas the Train party...
She was great when she got the X-Ray! We were able to do it in one take. The technicians were great. Elizabeth liked that Mommy had to wear the funny looking apron...it was much less attractive than her "apron" that looked more like a tool belt. She sniffed the flower at the right time just like they asked. What an angel!
After the techs shot the image, they were very good to let Elizabeth look at it. They pointed out her tongue, her teeth, and her big teeth. She told them that her teeth were already big. They showed me the adenoids, which, at least to me, made it look even more miraculous that she can swallow her own saliva.
E was disappointed that they didn't take an X-ray of her hand. (I'm crossing my fingers that Dr. Tiu can give us a copy or print-out of what they did shoot today - that would make her Christmas, I think!)
When we were in the car heading to daycare, she told me, "I saw my bones, and when I go to see the pandas at the zoo, I'm going to see my X-ray there. My doctor is going to bring it there - right Mommy?"
We're getting ready for Alex's 2nd Birthday party. According to Elizabeth, "we have a lot of work to do for Alex's party!" (MY work time will be somewhat determined by how much Elizabeth "helps" Mommy with the decorating of the Oscar the Grouch and Cookie Monster cookies, the Cookie Monster cake, and the Oscar, Cookie, Big Bird, Elmo, Kermit, etc. cupcakes, and other birthday prep.
The invite is pretty darn cute, if I do say so myself! I love getting to play in Photoshop on stuff like this!
Well...this morning Reid was taking Elizabeth to daycare with her adorable treats and cookies when he got stopped - by one of the administrators at the daycare. Apparently, there was a memo that neither of us got -- we can't bring anything homemade! :-|
The treats will be acceptable, once I bring the box that the crackers came in. The cookies, however, will be consumed by the staff - as the kids are not allowed to have them.
This is not the first time I've made cookies for the kids: pumpkin sugar cookies for Halloween, popcorn balls for Thanksgiving, chocolate chip cookies for Christmas, snowballs for January, Panda bear sugar cookies (that were the cat's meow) in February, green Rice Crispy treats for St. Patrick's Day, and TODAY we get stopped!
So, it will be off to the store for me to BUY crappy-ugly-store-bought-no-good cookies for Elizabeth's party. That's a party pooper!
So it's another party at Elizabeth's daycare tomorrow. Lots of the parents in Elizabeth's class do some kind of treat for the kids to take home, in addition to making or bringing what we've signed up to bring. Mainly it's junk...more crap that we don't need in our house -- certainly not in Elizabeth's stash of over-flowing toys. So, I try to do things that are more on the consumable side.
I think these little carrots turned out pretty cute. They were really easy to make, too!
I used disposable cake decorating bags. Filled each with some of the chick whole wheat cheddar cheese crackers (Target's knock-off of Goldfish...figured the chicks were more Eastery). Then I cut sheets of green tissue paper into squares. Stuffed the tops of the carrots with the tissue and tied them off with green curling ribbon. I cut out egg-shaped tags and wrote "Happy Easter
I think these turned out pretty cute, too!
Funny little ditty on E from this evening. While taking the first batch of cookies out of the oven, I burned the heck out of my thumb. Burned it badly enough that I had to keep ice on it for several hours to keep it from throbbing. When I was getting her ready for her bath I was asking her to please cooperate with me since my thumb was really hurting. About that time Reid came into the bathroom and was able to actually do the bathing duty, which saved my thumb being in warm water (thankyouverymuch, Sweetness!)
Reid asked Elizabeth, "Are you going to cooperate with Mommy, Elizabeth?"
Elizabeth replied, "Nope."
I know, I know...she's only 3. She doesn't know what cooperate means. It was still pretty funny to us, though!
I'm in preparation mode for the Masters next week/weekend.
If your house is anything like mine, you get a warm and fuzzy feeling inside the first time you hear CBS promo the Masters...and that music. The Masters is how I know its spring - and I get can get excited for all things that spring brings (like warmer weather!)
In our house, pretty much everything comes to a roaring halt for the Masters. We watch nothing but golf for a week straight. Replays of the day...replays of prior years...just the Golf Channel...it's a little slice of golfers' heaven!
It's too early for me to find out what Trevor Immelman will be serving for his Champions' Dinner for me to make my full preparations for our annual Champions' Dinner. But that doesn't mean that I'm not starting to worry that I won't be able to find certain ingredients...or what I need to do to make an appropriate substitution.
But my search for the 2009 Champions' Dinner menu lead me to this discovery: There are lyrics to the music we hear on CBS!
I have overlooked this is the past of my quest for knowledge of all things related to the Masters. (Wonder if Joe Sengelwalt is aware of this???)
Here is what the Masters website says:
| 16. | Q. | What is the name of the music that CBS uses during Masters Tournament coverage? |
| A. | Dave Loggins wrote the original score for CBS's coverage of the Masters in 1981. It was re-released by Leeds Music/Patchwork Music ASCAP in 1996 by Don Cherry. |
We had a great time with Grandma, Papi, Nana, Papa, and the Koeglers - Jason, Sarah, Campbell, & Will at Elizabeth's 3rd birthday party!!!
Warning: If you're diabetic, you may need to back away from the monitor a bit -- there was a wee bit of sugar involved in this event...
Today Elizabeth is thankful to/for/about:
So as usual, I'm a bit tardy in getting E's birthday party invitations in the mail. Her birthday always (I say this as if she's had 10+ more of these) creeps up on me. I started thinking about what I was going to do as soon as I figured out what she was going to be for Halloween (yes, pre-party preparations in September/October.) However, with the Christmas doings, I just didn't seem to get my act together to make the invitations until now. I know I could cop-out and just do a theme and buy the fill-in-the-blank invitations...but that wouldn't be the "Martha" way - and this is just something more for Aunt Anne to say, "How am I supposed to compete with this?"
So, the theme for Elizabeth's 3rd birthday party is "Candyland." It was a fun game that I enjoyed playing when I was a tot. Since these invites were a little more labor-intensive than in 
previous years, I thought I should show you my process. Plus, if it helps you get a little more creative/crafty - all the better!
The main part of the invitation required a little work on my part in PhotoShop. Here is what I started with - the photo of E I took during the photo shoot referenced in my previous post. I liberated a Candyland image...superimposed the image of Elizabeth, and worked up the invite from there...That part, which we'll get to in a little bit, was printed on card stock.
I purchased scrapbook paper that I was alright with (was hoping for a more candy-themed paper, but Michael's is quite limited in their scrapbook paper, in my humble opinion. The candy embellishments, outer wrapping and ribbon were also procured at Michael's. The lollipops were bought at Cracker Barrel. (I must note that I couldn't get 10 of the same kind of lollipop at Cracker Barrel - so if you're going to do something similar, you may need to purchase in advance. I like both kinds, so I'm still quite pleased overall.) Other items I used were stuff I had in my scrapbook work-space - the paper trimmer, self-healing cutting mat, bone paper folder, pencil, eraser, double-sided photo-safe adhesive, scalloped-edge scissors, the Martha Stewart circle cutter (puts the Creative Memories circle cutter to shame!), and the Cricut (had to use it...just for the little circles on the front...which I'll get to in a bit.)
I cut the scrapbook paper in half. Then I trimmed the short side of it by a quarter of an inch. I knew (based on what I had done with the invitation part in PhotoShop that the center piece would need to be 6", so I made reference marks in pencil - one tiny one in the center (you won't be able to see it in the picture), then measured out three inches from either side and those are the pencil lines you can see in the photo above.
Using the awesome Martha Stewart circle cutter and my pencil, I traced a circle for the center - just large enough to bleed off of the folded edge of the scrapbook paper. (Note, the folded part on the front should overlap by about a quarter of an inch. I then cut out the circle with a new pair of Fiskars scalloped-edge scissors - cussing at least twice per invitation because the scissors don't ever seem sharp enough - making sure to keep the folded parts attached to the main circle.
You can see how the scrapbook paper looks when cut out and unfolded.
Again using the Martha Stewart circle cutter, this time with the blade, I cut out the invitation that I created in PhotoShop and printed on card stock.
Next, using the double-sided photo-safe adhesive, I adhered the invitation in the center of the scallop-cut circle.
Using the circles I cut out using my Cricut cutter (any kind of circle cutter would work, I just wanted to play), I wrote "You're Invited" on each one and put a Martha Stewart candy embellishment on the top. Again, using the double-sided photo-safe adhesive, I adhered (albeit very lightly, the "You're Invited" circles on the front of the folded scrapbook paper. I used more adhesive on one side than the other -for easier opening.)
Then I used the double-sided adhesive (would have loved it if I could have just found my double-sided Scotch tape...but I'm sure it will show itself tomorrow...now that I don't need it!) I adhered the back scrapbook paper to the back of the lollipop. (I think double-stick tape would have worked a bit better, because the wrapping on the lollipops was somewhat difficult to get the invitation to stick to. However, it should be pretty easy to remove the invitation from the lollipop - should you get a sweet tooth or want to hang on to the invitation!
Finally, I wrapped the entire invitation in the shimmery-kind of cellophane, and tied a bow at the base of the lollipop with sheer ribbon to keep the cellophane intact.
Now, I ask you - who wouldn't want to get one of these cute little invitations from the cutest little soon-to-be three year old???
